Aligned Eyes New Markets After Investment from Macquarie

Aligned Energy has received a strategic investment from Macquarie Infrastructure Partners (MIP), which will provide “significant” additional capital to support the company’s growth, including expansion into new markets.
April 24, 2018
3 min read

In times of strong demand for data center space, more capital means more growth. For data center technology company Aligned Energy, a new round of investment signals expansion ahead, including a push into new geographic markets.

Aligned said Monday that it has received a strategic investment from Macquarie Infrastructure Partners (MIP), which will provide “significant” additional capital. Aligned isn’t disclosing the financial details of the investment, but it’s large enough that the company will now be “jointly controlled” by Macquarie and existing owner BlueMountain Capital Management.

“The investment provides Aligned with enhanced financial resources to meet substantial levels of current market demand,” said Andrew Schaap, the CEO of Aligned Energy. “With MIP’s support we are well positioned to meaningfully expand in our existing markets and are also evaluating entry into new markets.”

Traction in Several Markets

The investment by Macquarie comes as Aligned shows signs of strengthening interest from major data center users.  The company just announced plans for a 50 megawatt data center in Salt Lake City, and are expanding their Phoenix facility after a series of customer wins that filled much of its initial phase. Aligned also has a data center in Plano, Texas,  a northern suburb of Dallas.

Macquarie clearly likes that momentum.

“As an experienced investor in communications infrastructure, we are excited to invest in Aligned to help the company substantially accelerate its growth plans,” said Karl Kuchel, the CEO of Macquarie Infrastructure Partners. “The Aligned management team has extensive experience developing and operating data centers and has built two high-quality data centers that have strong leasing momentum with flagship customers.”

Future-Proofing the Data Center

Aligned was founded in 2015 with a focus on solving capacity management challenges, pursuing innovation in cooling and the supply chain. The company’s focus on flexible design seeks to “future proof” customers from evolving trends in rack density and applications. Schaap, a veteran of Digital Realty who joined Aligned as CEO last year, believes this approach will pay dividends as a series of next-generation technologies begin to drive data center demand.

“Aligned’s value proposition uniquely positions us to benefit from the massive growth we will continue to see in this industry, driven by cloud, the Internet of Things and Big Data. The Aligned team has operated over 750 MW and developed over $3.5 billion of data centers around the globe for some of the most discerning clients. With this team of seasoned professionals, we are excited about our future partnership with MIP.”

Where might Aligned look next? When the company launched in 2015, its stated goal was to have data centers in the top six markets, including northern New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Chicago and California (in addition to Dallas and Phoenix).

But the expansion into Salt Lake City indicates that Aligned has broadened its scope of vision on data center geography. Aligned will be the first large-footprint wholesale data center provider in Salt Lake City, which is home to several huge single-tenant data centers, but has a multi-tenant data center market in Utah has consisted primarily of smaller colocation centers, with no facilities larger than 11 megawatts.

About the Author

Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com
Source: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com
Sponsored
Your data center is cool. But is it efficient? Ray Daugherty, Senior Services Consultant with Modius, explains how DCIM software can provide actionable insights that lead to smarter...
Flexential
coreweave___plano_expansion___social_2
CoreWeave's partnership expansion with Flexential signifies a milestone in AI-centric cloud infrastructure evolution, reflecting the growing demand for GPU-optimized data center...
May 23, 2025
Aligned Data Centers
Leading AI developer cloud Lambda will occupy Aligned’s newest Dallas-Fort Worth facility, DFW-04, a liquid-cooled AI and cloud data center currently under construction in Plano, Texas.
As AI workloads surge and power densities soar, liquid cooling has shed its niche status to become core infrastructure. At the 2025 midpoint, we map some of the most notable the...
May 22, 2025
Hammerspace
Hammerspace data center render
Backed by $100 million in fresh capital, Hammerspace is advancing a global data platform built for AI-scale performance—delivering Tier 0 shared storage, a unified namespace, ...
May 21, 2025

White Papers

Dcf Afl Sr Cover 2023 01 09 12 22 13
Sponsored
In a world connected by digital infrastructure, new network considerations must be taken to ensure optimal performance, efficiency, and sustainability
Jan. 9, 2023
Sign up for the Data Center Frontier Newsletter
Get the latest news and updates.